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‘Glengarry’ at the Rep: a magnificent seven

Would David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” be a better stage play if it included the soliloquy Mamet wrote for Alec Baldwin in the movie version?

Anyone who has seen the film remembers Baldwin’s rant, a seven-minute tour de force that is equally profane, profound and pathetic. It’s so much a part of acting lore that it has become a favorite audition piece for performers.

It’s also brilliant as an element of cinematic framing. Baldwin, playing a hotshot named Blake, enters an office of salesmen who peddle undesirable real estate to unsuspecting Chicagoans. He tells the salesmen they’re history if they don’t produce results. He says they need to be angry to sell successfully, and he gives them plenty of reason to be angry.

In Mamet’s original play, all of this information is conveyed without Blake. Instead, the audience learns from three separate conversations in a Chinese restaurant that these are desperate times and desperate men.

That desperate measures will follow is pretty much assured.

After seeing director Wilson Milam’s current Seattle Rep production of “Glengarry Glen Ross” I pondered the Baldwin character, thinking it’s the sort of role Laurence Ballard or John Procaccino would have nailed to the wall.

But the movie character also creates a false enemy in Blake. Ultimately, the play is better without him. Or maybe I should say this play is better without him. Stunning work by three Seattle greats — John Aylward, Charles Leggett and R. Hamilton Wright — properly focuses our attention not on a convenient antagonist but on a corrupt system that enriches as it enervates. (Subprime mortgage, anyone?)

Aylward is Shelly Levene, the one-time top seller who is now in the cellar. Leggett is Dave Moss, the guy with the big mouth and bigger dreams. Wright is Ricky Roma, the corrupt Type A slimeball who’s atop the food chain right now.

Mamet, who is all about dialogue and cadence and rhythm, gives each character in “GGR” an opportunity to shine. (Seattle Rep artistic director Jerry Manning calls it “an actor’s playground.”) Aylward, Leggett and Wright shine most brightly in a cast of seven who conduct a magnificent examination of what some people will do to survive. And maybe even prosper. And don’t let the coarse language put you off. The F-bombs, S-words and racial insensitivity constitute the official — and necessary — language of a tribe that loathes gentility more than it loathes itself.

Much credit also goes to Eugene Lee, the longtime production designer at “Saturday Night Live,” whose brilliant set oozes desperation as the eye makes each desultory leap from cluttered desk to out-of-order restroom to cheesy pin-up calendar.

“Glengarry Glen Ross” is a short play that ends abruptly, which may explain the desire to contemplate the insertion of more material. But be assured it is not needed here. Milam elicits plenty of hardheartedness in 90 minutes. So much so that when Levene says, “I wasn’t cut out to be a thief, I was cut out to be a salesman,” it’s easy to believe that everyone on stage actually makes a distinction between the two, while everyone in the audience is chuckling.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.